


The Fantastic Mr. Whiskers

by chiridotalaevis



Series: Mr. Whiskers [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Cats, Getting Together, M/M, Mild Language, POV Outsider, Phil can talk to animals, Sort Of, Very minor mentions of homophobia, alternative universe, blink and you miss it - Freeform, minor magical realism, that's all the magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21912247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiridotalaevis/pseuds/chiridotalaevis
Summary: Mr. Whiskers does not approve of guests. But this human? This human was ok. This human could stay.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: Mr. Whiskers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629331
Comments: 58
Kudos: 121
Collections: Phandom Fic Fests Holiday Exchange 2019





	The Fantastic Mr. Whiskers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [basl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basl/gifts).



> Happy holidays basl! I hope you like this fic, even though I interpreted the prompt a bit loosely.
> 
> Written for the prompt: Phil can talk to animals but he keeps his power hidden. Dan and Phil start dating. Dan has a cat (because in this universe Dan has the right opinion and Phil is not allergic) the cat is really grumpy and usually hates everyone but it loves Phil. Dan is confused especially after he keeps catching Phil and the cat in -what looks like- deep conversations. The cat doesn't like certain things and Phil seems to know just why it is grumpy all the time, Dan gets suspicious and Phil ends up telling him about his power.
> 
> A huge thank you to my templeofshame and alittledizzy and the WWC crew for the support and encouragement. I couldn't have done this without you <3

Mr. Whiskers was fond of his human. Most of the time. Ok, about half of the time. He assumed that the human meant well, but why did he keep buying this disgusting fish flavored dry food when Mr. Whiskers obviously hated fish? How many times did he have to turn over the bowl or sulk in the corner under the table for his human to figure that out? Weren’t humans supposed to be the most intelligent animals in the world? (Mr. Whiskers internally snorted at that. Yeah right, they think that, but then they also shout at pictures moving in the big box in the living room. Even the most stupid alley cat knew that they can’t hear you if they’re inside the box.)

His human also insisted on inviting the most horrible people into his flat. One of them was apparently his brother, and they always cooked some kind of ridiculous meal with no meat whatsoever, only carrots and stupid broccoli. Not even a little dash of milk! Absolutely no edible scraps Mr. Whiskers could steal from the table and enjoy in peace. The other person who came over to their home was a woman with a loud voice and different colored hair, and the tendency to constantly want to squish Mr. Whiskers with no consideration of his dignity or desire to be squished. He wasn’t some kind of lap dog to be “cuddled” and cooed at! Didn’t that woman have a mother who would teach her to KEEP HER STUPID FURLESS HANDS TO HERSELF? Honestly, some humans needed a little scratch once in a while to know their place, and he didn’t care that his human would yell “Mr. Whiskers, behave yourself!” every time he did it. He’ll behave himself when the guests behave themselves. 

And the third semi regular visitor his human had was his mother, who called his human “Daniel” and would sit on the sofa drinking tea in silence. Sometimes she would ask a question like “So, have you decided about going back to university?” or “Are you still working at that convenience store? I think you should be looking for something more serious,” or “Have you been seeing anyone? My friend’s daughter is about your age, I think you should give her a call.” And even though she never did anything annoying to Mr. Whiskers and even sometimes brought him a nice treat, he absolutely hated having her over, because his human would get sad and quiet afterwards, and sometimes lie in bed for an entire day. And no amount of rubbing against his hands or purring on his chest would make him smile.

But most of the time, it was just the two of them. His human would usually have to be woken up by Mr. Whiskers’ insistent meowing. Honestly, if it weren’t for him, the human would probably never get to work on time. And Mr. Whiskers would never get fed. After giving Mr. Whiskers some food (ok, why the constant fish? Urgh, it’s disgusting), the human would pour some milk over his dry food (without fish, one would note. Why does the human get fish-free dry food while Mr. Whiskers has to suffer?) and sit at the table slowly chewing on it. If the human would get too slow or close his eyes for too long, Mr. Whiskers would make sure to drop something off of the counter to wake him up. Then, the human would go into the bathroom and shower (yet further proof that humans are not that intelligent. Why would anyone voluntarily pour water over themselves? Idiotic.) and get dressed. There would then be the regular argument where Dan would shout “Why did you have to sleep on my work pants again? You got fur all over them! Just use the fucking bed I bought you!” and Mr. Whiskers would hiss and jump straight into the pile of clothing on the floor of the bedroom and start kneading at them. Show his human who’s boss. Then the human would leave and Mr. Whiskers could get some good sleep in the human’s comfortable bed. (Dan wonders why Mr. Whiskers doesn’t sleep in the bed he bought him? Well, why did he buy him a bed that’s like 20 times smaller than his own? Does this human seriously thinks that he needs more space than Mr. Whiskers? Ridiculous.)

The evenings were mostly spent with the human sitting in front of the big box with some kind of toy and screaming loudly at the moving objects while Mr. Whiskers lay curled up on the couch and eyed his human with pity.  _ They are never going to hear you, you fool. Just give up already. _ And after dinner (fish dry food, again; someone needs to smack some sense into this human) they would go to bed, Dan under the covers and Mr. Whiskers usually on the large chair where the human put his black work pants that night. (What? The chair is comfortable!)

So when one evening, someone Mr. Whiskers never seen before walked in with his human, Mr. Whiskers was immediately suspicious. The new guest was as tall as Dan, but had black hair and bright blue eyes. He was smiling and out of breath, and was looking around the apartment in wonder.

“So, this is my place,” Dan said, his voice sounding uncharacteristically shaky. “And this is Mr. Whiskers. Don’t mind him, he’s very grumpy, so don’t be offended if he hates you.”

Mr. Whiskers hissed in indignation. He wasn’t grumpy! He was an absolute delight if you knew how to behave yourself. He even let his human pet him a couple times the day before, and only hissed at him twice this morning! And Dan dares to call him grumpy?

“Hello Mr. Whiskers!” replied the stranger. “I’m Phil! It’s very nice to meet you.”

There was something really weird about this new human’s voice. Mr. Whiskers couldn’t exactly place what it was, but something was very different.

“Phil, you’re so funny! You honestly think he understands you?” Dan laughed and Mr. Whiskers meowed, offended. Did his human think he’s stupid?

“Of course he does, Dan, and I don’t think he likes you saying that.”

Ok, Phil seemed to be acceptable so far. He seemed respectful. Mr. Whiskers could give him a chance. For now.

“Oh Phil, you’re so precious!” Dan replied, and looked at the new guy with a smile on his face that made Mr. Whiskers want to roll his eyes. He looked at him like a little kitten looks at his first bouncy ball, or like his mother used to look at him when she would lick his face. Disgusting.

They ended up sitting on the couch and shouting at the lit up box together, and Mr. Whiskers felt his good opinion of the new ‘Phil’ human decline a bit. He might be smart enough to know that Mr. Whiskers understands them, but still obviously not the brightest kitten in the litter. He was also a little odd in other ways, biting Dan on the shoulder sometimes and giggling all the time. Perhaps he was hungry? Mr. Whiskers would also sometimes bite his human for food, but Dan seemed to react very differently to Phil biting him. When Mr. Whiskers would bite, his human would screech and call him a “dirty animal.” When Phil bit him, however, Dan would flush red and giggle. He looked like a tomato, it was frankly ridiculous.

It was long dark outside by the time Phil stood up from the couch and headed out. He hugged Dan and whispered something in his ear, and then looked Mr. Whiskers directly in the eyes and said “Goodbye Mr. Whiskers! See you soon!”

Something was definitely off about this person.

***

After that night, Phil became a constant presence in the flat. He would come over almost every night and stay later and later. Occasionally, he would stay overnight in the human’s bed and eat breakfast with them. He also seemed to progress from biting Dan to doing all sorts of other stupid things, like licking and sucking on his mouth, laying on his shoulder or on his chest and nuzzling into his neck. And his human seemed to not only allow it, but do the same to Phil. At one point, his human actually pushed Mr. Whiskers out of the bedroom and closed the door. And didn’t let him in the entire night, which was so unthinkably rude that Mr. Whiskers had no choice but to pee in Dan’s palm tree. The next morning they both emerged looking like they didn’t sleep at all, which of course they didn’t. Who would be able to sleep without Mr. Whiskers watching over them? And why did Phil have dark spots all over his neck?

However, even with all of this, having Phil around all the time definitely had some benefits. First of all, Phil apparently loved pizza, which meant that if Mr. Whiskers whined hard enough, he would always get a little pepperoni or sausage out of their plates. Additionally, Phil’s presence drove away Dan’s need to invite other people and Phil himself was always very respectful of the “don’t touch the cat if he doesn’t want it” rule. And of course, Mr. Whiskers was somewhat satisfied to see his human so happy. Some might even say that Mr. Whiskers was happy for him, but those people would be wrong, of course; Mr. Whiskers was far too important of a creature to really care about the wellbeing of his human (even though he did know that if Phil dared to hurt Dan, he would scratch his eyes out and not even think about it).

But the most significant changes came from the fact that Phil seemed to somehow just know things. Or, at least, guess some of the things Mr. Whiskers wanted. For example, one time when they were having breakfast and Dan was pouring the horrid fish dry food into Mr. Whisker’s bowl, Mr. Whiskers let out a frustrated meow. While Dan refused to get the hint for several years, Phil immediately seemed to understand Mr. Whisker’s frustration and told Dan that “I don’t think your cat really likes this type of food, maybe we should get him something different?” And indeed, a couple days later Phil brought over several different bags of cat food and had Dan perform a complicated taste test to determine which one was Mr. Whisker’s favorite. And somehow, Phil was able to exactly tell Dan which one Mr. Whisker’s liked most (the duck flavored one, of course, although the beef and rabbit one were also not bad).

Phil also would always say a proper hello and goodbye to Mr. Whiskers and always asked him if he could pet him. But the weirdest thing was that when Mr. Whiskers wasn’t in the mood for sentimental cuddles, Phil would just chuckle and say, “Ok, ok, maybe next time.” And whenever Mr. Whiskers allowed Phil to pet him, the human managed to scratch the perfectly right spot. Mr. Whiskers has never met a human who understood him as well as Phil.

***

One morning, Mr. Whiskers could tell something was wrong as soon as he woke up. The day before was one of the rare nights Phil wasn’t here, and Dan had spent the previous evening outside the house, only to come home at two am, pale, shivering and with puffed red eyes. He immediately went to bed without even saying hi to Mr. Whiskers or giving him the normal scratch behind the ears. The next morning, no matter how much Mr. Whiskers meowed or scratched at him, no matter how many cups he threw off of the counter, his human refused to get out of bed. He was lying under his blankets, covering his entire head, and Mr. Whiskers could hear a quiet sobbing from under it.

That morning Dan never got up for work. He just lay in bed, standing up only once to go to the bathroom and carelessly throwing some food in the general direction of Mr. Whisker’s bowl. The sun set and his human never stood up to turn on any lights. He just lay in bed motionless, sometimes letting out a quiet sob.

It was fully dark when Mr. Whisker’s heard the door open.

“Dan? Baby? Are you home?” Phil’s voice rang out in the darkness. Mr. Whiskers immediately raced to the door and started meowing at Phil. If anyone could cheer his human up, it would be Phil. Something was definitely wrong. 

Phil entered the living room and turned on the light. Then he looked Mr. Whiskers right in the eyes and said, “You’re saying he didn’t get out of bed at all?”

Mr. Whiskers stared in shock at Phil.

“Listen, Mr. Whiskers, I can speak to animals, it’s no big deal. I just didn’t want Dan to know in case he thought I was weird or something. But we can discuss this in detail later; can you please tell me what happened to Dan?”

If Mr. Whiskers were a less dignified cat, he probably would have freaked out. But Mr. Whiskers doesn’t freak out. He’s always collected and poised, and honestly it’s not like he was that surprised, truly. (He definitely was.)

Quickly collecting himself from not being shocked at all, Mr. Whiskers proceeded to tell Phil exactly what was going on. Phil just looked intently at him and nodded along.

“Did he have anything to eat? He was crying yesterday? He was supposed to stay at his parents, but you’re saying he came back in the middle of the night? Ok, ok. Wait, slow down. Oh, he sometimes cries when his mom visits? Ok, I’ll see what I can do. Thank you, thank you!”

With that, Phil poured some water into a glass and quietly opened the door into the bedroom.

“Let me see how Dan is doing and I’ll feed you, Mr. Whiskers,” Phil whispered. Ok, that was fair. As long as it didn’t take forever, because dinner was supposed to be served at least two hours ago.

After a couple minutes of waiting, Mr. Whiskers slid into the dark bedroom and saw that Phil was lying in bed next to Dan, combing his fingers through his curly hair and murmuring into his ear.

“I’m so sorry, love. It’s his loss, you’re perfect. I’m so so sorry.”

“I wanted them to get to know you…” Dan sobbed. “I thought they would be happy for me.”

“They’ll come around, Danny, and if not, it’s their loss. It’s going to be ok, I’m here.”

Mr. Whiskers wanted to remind Phil of his promise to feed him dinner, but decided that he might not actually be that hungry. Instead, Mr. Whiskers climbed onto the bed and firmly planted himself between the two humans, kneading at the softness of Dan’s stomach and purring loudly. Dinner could wait until his human was a little happier. Maybe Mr. Whiskers would even curl up in Dan’s lap later, and let him pet him for an hour or two. Mr. Whisker’s was generous like that.

***

The next morning Phil woke up earlier than Dan and slipped out of bed into the kitchen.

“Let him sleep” he whispered to Mr. Whiskers who was about to start the normal process of waking Dan up. “I told our manager he won’t come into work today; he had a rough night.”

Mr. Whiskers followed Phil out into the kitchen and jumped up on the breakfast bar.

“So…” Phil said.

Mr. Whiskers stared at him.

“You hungry?”

Of course he was.

“Why is all of this crap on the floor? You tried to wake him up that way? Honestly, Mr. Whiskers, are you expecting me to clean this up? Of course you are.”

Phil quickly swept up the broken china and put the rest of the junk off the floor back onto the counter.

“Here, let me get you some food. Do you want the duck or the rabbit? Duck? Ok!”

He poured some food into the bowl and put it on the table.

“Come have breakfast with me, Mr. Whiskers. I think Dan might be sleeping in for a bit.”

Phil made himself a cup of coffee and got a biscuit from the cupboard. They sat at the table in silence, both munching on their food for a bit.

“So… Alligators are pretty cool, aren’t they?”

Mr. Whiskers just stared at him.

“What? They are! I went to the zoo with my family once and the alligator told me that my thighs are my best feature! Although I don’t know if he was saying that from an aesthetic or food related point of view. Either way, that was really nice of him.”

Mr. Whiskers glanced down at Phil’s thighs.

“Well, the alligator liked them, so you can keep your snarky comments to yourself,” Phil laughed. “Dan appears to like them, so shush.”

Mr. Whiskers laid down on the table and flicked his tail.

“Hey, don’t insult my boyfriends taste. He chose you as a pet, didn’t he?” Phil smirked. “Well of course  _ he _ didn’t choose you, it was the other way around, what am I even saying. And you did a good job, you have a nice human there, don’t you.”

Just as Phil was saying that, the door to the bedroom creaked open and a sleepy-looking Dan emerged.

“Who are you talking to, Phil?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

Mr. Whiskers and Phil shared a glance and the cat jumped off the table and walked towards Dan. He rubbed his side on Dan’s legs and purred.

“Why are you suddenly so nice? What’s going on?”

“Nothing, babe, we were just having breakfast. Do you want something?” Phil replied in an exaggeratedly innocent voice.

Honestly, Phil was the worst liar Mr. Whiskers has ever seen. Dan looked at Phil with even more suspicion. 

To break the tension, Mr. Whiskers had to plunge his claws into Dan’s naked shin.

“Owww, you animal, what the fuck!?” Dan shouted, and Mr. Whiskers proudly walked away, successfully defusing the situation.  _ Watch and learn, Phil. Watch and learn. _

“Will you still move in with me if this monster of a cat lives here?” Dan asked Phil, rubbing his scratched up ankle. He plopped himself into a chair at the table and took a sip of Phil’s coffee. 

“Do you seriously think I would dare move in without getting Mr. Whiskers’ approval?” Phil replied. “It’s not like it’s up to you or me if I get to live here.”

Mr. Whiskers jumped into Dan’s lap and curled up into a ball. Dan automatically started combing his hands through his soft fur.

“Do you approve, Mr. Whiskers?” Dan asked him. “I think he approves,” he smiled widely at Phil.

“Oh, he does, as long as we keep buying him the duck-flavored cat food,” Phil replied.

Mr. Whiskers started purring loudly in Dan’s lap. Phil was ok. Phil could stay, he decided.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Tell me what you think:)  
> Come talk to me on [Tumblr](https://quercussp.tumblr.com/) or click [here](https://quercussp.tumblr.com/post/189981765232/the-fantastic-mr-whiskers) to reblog.


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